Four Jewish schools in national top 100
YAVNEH COLLEGE was ranked 25th out of 4,417 English schools for progress made by pupils between GCSE and A-level in new national performances published by the Department for Education.
The state-aided Orthodox school in Hertfordshire received a sixth-form progress score of 0.65 (0 being average).
For progress from entry to GCSE, one Charedi girls’ school, Menorah High in Dollis Hill, was in the top ten schools nationally, while another, Beis Yaakov in Salford, in the top 60. Both Hasmonean and JFS reached the top 100.
Spencer Lewis, headteacher of Yavneh, said: “We are so proud of how well our pupils did last year, both at GCSE and at A-level. In particular, the progress that Yavneh College pupils make in the time that they are with us is a testament to their hard work and that of the staff who work with them.”
As well as Yavneh, JFS was rated “well above average” for sixth-form progress with a score of 0.41, while JCoSS and King David High School Manchester were both classified as above-average with 0.22 and 0.17 respectively.
JFS, Yavneh, Hasmonean, King David Manchester, King David Liverpool, Beis Yaakov, Yesodey Hatorah Senior Girls and Menorah High all were ranked as “well above average” by the DfE for progress made by pupils from entry to GCSE. JCoSS and Kantor King Solomon High were listed as “above average”.
Menorah High was seventh out of 6,323 schools for its progress score of 1.25 up to GCSE, with Beis Yaakov at joint 53rd with a score of 0.9; Hasmonean joint 78th with 0.84; and JFS joint 94th with 0.81.
The figures suggest children enjoy good teaching in Jewish schools since many are doing better in exams than might have been predicted when they started school.
However, the results do not say whether children may have improved exam grades through private tuition.
This year, there are even more performance statistics than before because the DfE offers figures for pass-rates at the new grade 4 in English and maths as well as at grade 5.
Even so, the bare numbers do not always tell the true story. Mesivta, a Charedi boys’ school in Manchester, has an artificially low progress score because pupils take GCSEs a year early — and so recorded passes for English and maths at the old C grade or above rather than the new 4 or above passes, which now count since last summer. (Mesivta was in the top five per cent of schools for progress in last year’s tables with a score of 0.61.)
Immanuel College is not listed in our GCSE table because pupils take several iGCSEs (international GCSEs) which are not recognised by the DfE.
While some Charedi girls’ schools perform well at GCSE, few of their pupils go on to take A-levels.
Even in the more conservative Strictly Orthodox sector, pupils at independent girls schools such as Beis Malka or Beis Chinuch Lebonos in Hackney achieve slightly better than average attainment for English schools at GCSE.
But many Charedi boys do not take a single GCSE.
According to the “attainment 8” measure, based on pupils’ eight best GCSE results including maths and English, Jewish schools were the top-performing faith group with 58.6 points (ahead of Muslim schools with 56.6).